European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana will conduct the talks with the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, along with senior officials from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States in the Swiss city of Geneva.

Solana stressed ahead of the meeting, the first of its kind for 14 months, that the five permanent powers (P5) in the UN Security Council and Germany wanted guarantees from Tehran on the civilian nature of its nuclear ambitions.

"For the moment we have not obtained the objective of guarantees that the project is only peaceful," Solana said on the sidelines of an EU defence meeting.

He called the talks a "test" of Iran's intentions, as the powers maintained demands for a freeze in Iran's nuclear enrichment in return for a freeze in sanctions.

"I say to Iran as they face a crucial date this week; join the international community now or face isolation," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday.

Iran has insisted for years that it has a right to civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and to make enriched fuel for power plants -- although its first Russian-built and long-delayed nuclear plant is yet to come on line.

But its announcement last week of the ongoing construction of another uranium enrichment plant, underground near the Shiite holy city of Qom, prompted stern warnings from western capitals led by Washington.

The belated disclosure has also heightened suspicions that Iran is seeking the capability to make atomic weapons, said Mark Fitzpatrick, an expert on nuclear non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

"It creates a stronger degree of consensus amongst the P5 on the realisation that Iran's programme is not for peaceful purposes, it has a military purpose: that should now be clear to all but the most naive," he told AFP.

"If Iran does not agree to negotiate in some sincere fashion, this outing of the facility at Qom brings forward the date that severe sanctions will be imposed," Fitzpatrick added.

Iran's nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran will "very soon" give the International Atomic Energy Agency a timetable for inspecting its second enrichment plant, in an interview posted with state-owned Press TV on Tuesday.

Diplomatic efforts in recent years have stumbled on Iran's build up of uranium enrichment -- which could be used for both civilian and military purposes -- in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

The IAEA's latest report on Iran complained that Tehran was not cooperating on questions related to a possible military dimension to its nuclear programme.

Earlier this month, Iran presented a new package of proposals for Thursday's talks.

It referred to global nuclear disarmament -- an issue addressed by the UN Security Council in a resolution since then -- and a range of issues but not its own atomic programme.

Iranian officials underscored that their nuclear "rights" -- a euphemism for uranium enrichment which the UN Security Council wants suspended -- were not negotiable.

Mohammad-Reza Djalili, an expert on Iranian affairs at Geneva's Graduate Institute, said Tehran's strategy was based on "not giving any ground on the nuclear issue and gaining time, which they have been doing for more or less seven years."

Fitzpatrick said Iran could offer to come into line with some IAEA requirements to woo Russia and China, but that would not resolve demands on enrichment limits.

"I think Iran will try to avoid sanctions by gauging how much cooperation they need to provide, so they'll show a little leg in terms of cooperation," he added.

However, analysts also pointed to signs of a recent hardening in Russia's stance.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said this week that Moscow would like to see "substantial progress" on the nuclear programme in Geneva, days after President Dmitry Medvedev signalled that he might endorse sanctions against Iran.

"It's a strong indication of a change in Russia's position and that probably has something to do with the US attempts to reset the relationship with Russia," said Fitzpatrick.

earlier related report
US ramps up pressure on Iran, Russia concerned on missiles
The United States piled pressure on Iran Monday ahead of key nuclear talks, demanding full access to Tehran's newly revealed uranium plant and denouncing "provocative" new missile tests.

"This is an important day, and an important week for the Iranians, they have decisions to make," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, in the run-up to Thursday's meeting in Geneva between world powers and Iran.

Russia, meanwhile, expressed concern at test-firings by Iran's Revolutionary Guards of surface-to-surface Sejil and Shahab-3 missiles, both of which Tehran says are capable of hitting targets in Israel.

It was the latest sign of a common concern over Iran between Russia and the United States, following talks between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and US President Barack Obama in New York last week.

Gibbs argued that the world had never been more united on challenging Iran's nuclear program, and Tehran never more alone, attempting to play on the apparently increasing isolation facing the Iranians over their nuclear program.

Washington demanded Tehran throw open the previously secret uranium enrichment plant buried in a mountain near the holy city of Qom, to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors.

"They can... agree to immediate, unfettered access. I think that would be the least that they can do," Gibbs said.

"I don't believe that there's ever been as broad and as deep a consensus about addressing the concerns that we have right now."

The White House and the State Department also strongly condemned Iran's latest missile tests.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the tests were "not helpful at all.

"To the extent that Iran wants to continue to act more like a police state or a military state than a constructive player in the region, it just will further isolate Iran."

Gibbs said: "I would lump any of these into the provocative nature with which Iran has acted on the world stage for a number of years." He added, however, that the tests appeared pre-planned and not directly related to the Geneva talks.

He said they validated Obama's decision to switch from a missile defense system in Eastern Europe targeting long-range Iranian missiles to a program concerned more with short and medium range Iranian ballistics.

Crowley warned that Iran would fail, if its motivation was to try to influence Thursday's P5-plus-one talks between Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.

"It just will further isolate Iran, and you'll continue to see greater international consensus for additional steps, including sanctions against Iran.

"This provocative behavior did not work for North Korea, it's unlikely to work for Iran."

Russia also expressed concern over the Iranian missile tests.

"It is not prohibited by any international agreement, but of course when missile launches occur on top of the unresolved situation surrounding Iran's nuclear programme, it's worrying," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, according to news agencies.

Another key player is China, which has yet to match Medvedev's hint that tough new sanctions might be necessary, should Iran not meet foreign concerns.

The top US diplomat handling Asia said that Beijing was coming around on the need for tougher action against Iran, after talks last week between Chinese and US officials on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh.

"For the first time, really, the Chinese supported elements of our tough approach on the P5-plus-one," said Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

Talk of more sanctions has been swelling ahead of the Geneva meeting between Iran, the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany in Geneva.

But Iran has so far been defiant and Iranian armed forces chief of staff General Hassan Firouzabadi on Monday dismissed Israeli threats out of hand.

"Israel is a paper tiger and when they say that Israel is going to attack Iran it is a bluff," Firouzabadi said, quoted by the Mehr news agency.

Tehran admitted last week building a uranium enrichment plant at the Qom site, its second after a facility in Natanz, in defiance of repeated UN demands for a halt to all enrichment activities until the IAEA can vouchsafe that they are entirely peaceful, as claimed by the Islamic republic.

Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear fuel, but also the fissile material for an atomic bomb.

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